About

Dear Reader,

welcome to my collection of Nordic historical criminal statistics! My name is Miikka Vuorela and I currently work as a university lecturer of criminology and general jurisprudence at the University of Eastern Finland. I am a historical criminologist and the main focus of my work is on the development of crime and punishment in Finland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden from the early 19th century to the present.

This website is the result of a decade’s work on collecting and compiling criminal justice statistics. (I began logging the numbers in June 2013.) The project has in its lifecycle been funded by the Institute of Criminology and Legal Policy at the University of Helsinki, the Nordic Research Council for Criminology and the Law School at the University of Eastern Finland. I am grateful for the opportunity to work on the project for so long.

I would especially like to extend my warm gratitude to professor emeritus Tapio Lappi-Seppälä who has been guiding and mentoring the project since its beginning.

In all honesty, I would not have began the work if I had understood the challenge. Luckily, I had not, and after a couple of years it made no sense to quit. After all the effort, I am delighted to be finally able to publish the data and I sincerely hope it will be useful for your research endeavours.

Best wishes,
Miikka Vuorela